This invention relates to apparatus for playing a board game. More particularly, this invention relates to such apparatus in which the players can alter the appearance of the game board during the course of a game.
Many board games are known having a board bearing a two-dimensional grid of fixed playing areas (typically squares), and two or more sets of playing pieces which are moved over the board by the players during the game, one set of playing pieces being under the control of each player. Apparatus for playing such board games may be divided broadly into two different types, a first type (exemplified by both ludo and checkers) in which all the pieces of a set are similar in appearance and can be moved in the same manner over the board during play, and a second type (exemplified by chess) in which the pieces of a set differ in appearance and move in different manners during play.
Throughout the history of chess and similar board games of this second type, much thought has been given to the types and numbers of playing pieces in each set and the manner in which they can be moved during play. The pieces and rules of the Western form of chess played in Europe and the Americas have been standardized for about the last 400 years, and require in each set sixteen pieces of six different types, each type moving differently during play (plus three special rules, namely pawns capturing diagonally although moving forwardly, the en passant rule, and the rule permitting simultaneous movement of the king and one rook during castling). However, several differing variants, including Chinese, Indian and Burmese, are still played in Asia, and as recently as the 1920's the grandmaster Jose Capablanca proposed the addition to the Western chess set of two further pieces (see Owner's Manual to the Chessmaster 3000 computer program, The Software Toolworks, Inc., Navato Calif. 94949 (1992)). Attempts have also been made to introduce three- and even four-dimensional chess.
Despite the prolific variation in the playing pieces and rules of chess and similar games, curiously little thought seems to have been given to the game board itself. Although the size of a chess board has varied during history (the Great Mogul Timor is said to have played a game called "Great Chess" on a 10.times.11 board, and the three- and four-dimensional chess games mentioned above obviously require extended boards), so far as the present inventors are aware, the board itself seems always to have been regarded simply as a passive grid over which the pieces are moved.
The present inventors have devised apparatus for playing a game in which the appearance of the game board is altered during play. The ability to alter the appearance of the game board during play enables the playing of a game which the present inventors believe to be at least as intellectually challenging as conventional chess but in which each set of playing pieces can include fewer pieces than conventional chess. Alternatively, more challenging versions of the game could be produced using no more playing pieces than in conventional chess.